Officially the Syrian Arab Republic

8/13/2019 Officially the Syrian Arab Republic

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Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in Western Asia, borderingLebanonand theMediterranean Seato

the West,Turkeyto the north,Iraqto the east,Jordanto the south andIsraelto the southwest Since

March 2011, Syria has been embroiled incivil warin the wake of uprisings (considered an extension of

theArab Spring,the mass movement of revolutions and protests in the Arab world) against Assad and

theneo-Ba'athistgovernment. Analternative governmentwas formed by the opposition umbrella

group, theSyrian National Coalition,in March 2012. Representatives of this government were

subsequently invited to take up Syria's seat at theArab League.[12]

The opposition coalition has been

recognised as the "sole representative of the Syrian people" by several nations including the United

States, United Kingdom and France

The Arab Spring(Arabic: , ar-rab al-arab) is a term for therevolutionary waveofdemonstrationsandprotests(both non-violent and violent),riots,andcivil

warsin theArab worldthat began on 18 December 2010.

To date, rulers have been forced from power inTunisia,[1]

Egypt(twice),[2]

Libya,[3]

and

Yemen;[4]

civil uprisings have erupted inBahrain[5]

andSyria;[6]

major protests have broken outinAlgeria,

[7]Iraq,

[8]Jordan,

[9]Kuwait,

[10]Morocco,

[11]andSudan;

[12]and minor protests have

occurred inMauritania,[13]

Oman,[14]

Saudi Arabia,[15]

Djibouti,[16]

andWestern Sahara.[17]

The Syrian civil war(Arabic: "Syrian crisis"),[50][51][52]also called theSyrian uprising,

[53]is an ongoing armed conflict inSyriabetween forces loyal to theBa'ath

government and those seeking to oust it. The conflict began on 15 March 2011, with popular

demonstrations that grew nationwide by April 2011. These demonstrations were part of the wider

Middle Eastern protest movement known as theArab Spring.Protesters demanded theresignation of PresidentBashar al-Assad,whose family has held the presidency in Syria since

1971, as well as the end of theArab Socialist Ba'ath Partyrule since 1964.

In April 2011, theSyrian Armywas deployed to quell the uprising, and soldiers fired on

demonstrators across the country.[54][55]

After months of military sieges,[56]

the protests evolved

into an armed rebellion. Opposition forces, mainly composed of defected soldiers and civilian

volunteers, remain without central leadership.[57]

The conflict isasymmetrical,with clashestaking place in many towns and cities across the country.

[58]TheArab League,United States,

European Union,and other countries condemned the use of violence against the protesters. The

Arab League suspended Syria's membership because of the government's response to the crisis,but granted theSyrian National CoalitionSyria's seat on 6 March 2013.

[59]

Late 2011 marked growing influence of the Islamist groupJabhat al-Nusrawithin the opposition

forces, and in 2013Hezbollahentered the war in support of the Syrian army.[60][61]

The regime isfurther upheld by support fromRussiaandIran,whileQatar,Saudi Arabiatransfer weapons to

the rebels.[62]

By summer 2013 the government's offensive had slowed in the country's north,while gained in the south.

[63]By July 2013, the Syrian government controls approximately 30

40 percent of the country's territory and 60 percent of the Syrian population.[64]

The insurgency

controls large swaths of territory in the country's north and east.
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In June 2013, the death toll surpassed 100,000 according to the United Nations.[35]

According to

various opposition activist groups, between 80,350 and 106,425 people have been

killed,[26][32][37][65]

of which about half were civilians,[66]

but also including 65,100 armedcombatants consisting of both the Syrian Army and rebel forces,

[26]up to 1,000 opposition

protesters[31]

and 1,000 government officials.[27]

By October 2012, up to 28,000 people had been

reported missing, including civilians forcibly abducted by government troops or securityforces.[67]

According to the UN, about 4 million Syrians have been displaced within the countryand 1.8 million have fled to other countries.

[68][69]In addition, tens of thousands of protesters

have been imprisoned and there are reports of widespreadtortureand terror in state prisons.[70]

International organizations have accused both government and opposition forces of severehuman rights violations.

[71]UN investigations have concluded that the government's abuses are

the greatest in gravity, frequency and scale.[72]

THE SYRIAN CIVIL WAR: BETWEEN ESCALATION AND INTERVENTION

It took some time for the Arab Awakening to take hold in Syria, despite the fact that the

political, economic, and demographic conditions there were quite similar to the situation in

other Arab republics such as Tunisia, Egypt, or Libya. The initial absence of a Syrian protest

movement was attributed to the popularity of President Bashar al-Asad, who had presented

himself as a reformer in the previous decade, although the short-lived Damascus Spring

proved to be a mere episode. Asad distinguished himself from other Arab potentates by his

youth, but also by his consistent foreign policy directed against the US and Israel, while

promoting Syrias association with theso-called resistance front that comprises Iran, theLebanese Hizbollah, and the Palestinian Hamas

In the summer of 2011, various local resistance groups and neighbourhood militias came together under the umbrella of the newly-formed

Free Syrian Army (FSA). The FSA, founded by defectors from the regular

The Syrian civil war is seen by the elite as a proxy war between two blocs: The al-Assad regime,Iran, Russia and China on the one hand and the Syrian opposition, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, the United

States and the European Union on the other.

The Syrian uprising began as a largely peaceful protest movement against the Baathist regime of Basharal- Assad in March 2011. Initially part of the revolutions sweeping across the Middle East during the ArabSpring, it has now devolved into a full-scale civil war. As of May 2013, the death toll was estimated at

80,000 ( u.n general assembly president Nichols mischelle)

The first narrative is that there is an emerging proxy war between regional and international blocsconsisting of the Syrian regime, Iran, Russia and China on one side and the Syrian opposition, Saudi

Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, the United States and the European Union on the other. The second narrative

raises the specter of the spread of radical Sunni political Islam in the MENA region, asserting that the
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war#cite_note-UN-35http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war#cite_note-UN-35http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war#cite_note-UN-35http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war#cite_note-SOHR-26http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war#cite_note-SOHR-26http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war#cite_note-Violations_Documenting_Center1-37http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war#cite_note-Violations_Documenting_Center1-37http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war#cite_note-over40000-66http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war#cite_note-over40000-66http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war#cite_note-over40000-66http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war#cite_note-SOHR-26http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war#cite_note-SOHR-26http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war#cite_note-SOHR-26http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war#cite_note-almost11.2C500-31http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war#cite_note-almost11.2C500-31http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war#cite_note-almost11.2C500-31http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war#cite_note-safepassage-27http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war#cite_note-safepassage-27http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war#cite_note-safepassage-27http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war#cite_note-67http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war#cite_note-67http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war#cite_note-67http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war#cite_note-68http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war#cite_note-68http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war#cite_note-68http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_torture_since_1948#Syriahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_torture_since_1948#Syriahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_torture_since_1948#Syriahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war#cite_note-npr-70http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war#cite_note-npr-70http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war#cite_note-npr-70http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war#cite_note-71http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war#cite_note-71http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war#cite_note-71http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war#cite_note-72http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war#cite_note-72http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war#cite_note-72http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war#cite_note-72http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war#cite_note-71http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war#cite_note-npr-70http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_torture_since_1948#Syriahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war#cite_note-68http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war#cite_note-68http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war#cite_note-67http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war#cite_note-safepassage-27http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war#cite_note-almost11.2C500-31http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war#cite_note-SOHR-26http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war#cite_note-over40000-66http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war#cite_note-Violations_Documenting_Center1-37http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war#cite_note-Violations_Documenting_Center1-37http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war#cite_note-SOHR-26http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war#cite_note-SOHR-26http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war#cite_note-UN-35


3/3

support of regional and international states for the Syrian opposition is fueling this trend. The third

narrative alleges a Western propaganda campaign against the al-Assad regime.

Documents

Officially the Syrian Arab Republic